Many products flowing from the world's industrialized society cannot just be thrown away, without treatment or modification, after their usefulness has expired. Rules and ordinances related to the operation of sanitary landfills and other waste disposal plants forbid the acceptance of a tire casing per se because of its bulk, shape and propensity to collect water and thus provide a place for breeding mosquitoes and other harmful insects. Some landfill operations, however, do accept unprepared tire casings, but at a premium price. Most, if not all, landfill operations accept tire casings if the tire side walls were separated from the tread portion. To accomplish this, a machine is needed that will cut the side walls or it must be done by hand.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,733,941 addresses the problem of providing an apparatus for removing the side walls of the tire from the tread portion. This disclosure is directed to a machine that includes a rather complicated means for grasping a tire from within the tire itself plus a cutting bar rotated by an upstanding rotating shaft to which the cutter bar is attached. This particular disclosure can be interpreted as a distinct machine adapted to perform and dedicated to the sole function of cutting tires.
Applicant's invention, on the other hand, provides for a means to grasp the tire to be cut not from within but from without, i.e., on the outside of the side walls themselves and further provides a cutter bar and first and second plates to accomplish such grasping. These plates can be easily assembled and removed from existing, on the market, tire changers, e.g., a Coats 20-20 Superstar, available on the commercial market through various distributors. Thus, the instant invention, does not require a machine that is solely dedicated to removing tire side walls from the tread portion as is the case with prior art apparatus. Removal of the cutter bar and plates prepares the proposed apparatus for the function of tire changer.